ARU Research Report 2019

The Up Project 19 What Are the Challenges for Children & Teaching Staff? The feedback from teaching staff and children was overwhelmingly positive. It was difficult to identify enduring challenges, as those that were raised initially were resolved quickly. However, it was possible to identifying some challenges which might affect other children whose voices are not reflected in the focus groups, or may attend in the future. Individual Differences Although not raised by any of the children in focus groups, teachers did indicate that a minority of children may never fully take to the experience. It is important to keep in mind that whilst the children in focus groups shared stories of a positive journey, this might not apply to all children who take part. ‘Yeah, the majority of children do [adjust]. I wouldn’t say that all of the children do. They all go. They don’t come and say, “Well I don’t want to go anymore.” Those that were apprehensive before, like when I talk to them and say, “It’s always worth going once. You don’t know how you’re going to be until you go. You need to put yourself in those situations.” Nobody has then said, “I don’t want to go.” However, there are children who probably still found it a little bit difficult, even at the end, or were quieter, but they all went and they all tried.’ (Teaching staff) Surprising Behaviour Although not perceived as such in any of the feedback, there were incidents the children described in relation to surprising or unpredictable behaviour of some of older adults with dementia. These incidents were recalled by the children with candour, affection and humour and were reflected interestingly in the children’s favourite memories of their visits. However, it is possible to see from the children’s descriptions of these events that other children may have found this challenging to interpret or deal with: ‘There was a lady there when I went, the last time I was there, there was a boy who had just finished doing his picture, his pumpkin picture, and the lady who sings a lot, she looked at it and went, “It’s horrible, it’s horrible I tell you, it’s horrible”, and then when he added some blue to it she was like, “Darling it’s beautiful. And I really liked the games’ table, that was a funny memory, we were at the games’ table and there was a lady there who wasn’t very happy, she was just sitting in the corner, and I don’t think she was happy, and then she just went to everyone, “Shut up everyone”, and it was really funny.’ (Child 5) Teaching staff too reflected on some of the surprising behaviours they have observed between the children and older adults. They interpreted such incidents as opportunities for learning, in which children are confronted with new situations to negotiate, with their support. As seen previously in the teachers’ comments, key to this is the modelling of appropriate responses for the children to imitate. Also key was preparing the children with information prior to visits, illustrating some of the characters they might engage with and their idiosyncrasies. Although there had not been any significant incidents which needed to be addressed, teachers also described informally debriefing children after visits and providing space for open discussion: ‘Then you’ve got those, obviously, that have got dementia and might make odd comments or have funny little outbursts as well, sort of thing, but we just say, “Don’t worry about that. We’ll carry on chatting. Get back on track to what you were doing.” We just say to them, “Ignore those little outbursts and don’t take any offence from them.”